


please let me bring my man

by blazeofglory



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Cancer, M/M, almost poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1706663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazeofglory/pseuds/blazeofglory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is 10 and 24 and 15 all at once, and Bucky Barnes is always there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	please let me bring my man

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Lana Del Rey's "Young and Beautiful." 
> 
> Disclaimer: I wrote this on a whim, and I know absolutely nothing about cancer or illness or treatments. I tried to be very vague about all of that so any inaccuracies don't detract from the story. 
> 
> Also, if you read my fic "not alone, but lonely," this is very similar to that, style-wise.

Sometimes, when the days are long and he is alone, Steve thinks back to the day they met, when the sun was bright and the pavement was hot and he was bleeding from his lip--

 

_“What the hell are ya doin’, just layin’ there?”_

_“I’m gettin’ up! I had ‘em!”_

 

\--and sometimes, _sometimes_ , it makes everything hurt a little less. These are the good days, when he can think back to the times when they weren’t strained and tired all the time, when he wasn’t dragging Bucky down with him. This future of theirs, it’s different.

They’re 24 and in love. Steve knows it, Bucky knows it, the whole damn world knows it. The doctors that kick Bucky out of his room when it gets too late, they know it damn well too. They’re permanent fixtures in each others’ lives, except not really. Bucky is there for Steve, another universal constant that the whole world knows, but Steve is not there for Bucky. How can he be? He can barely be there for himself, can barely even leave the bed.

It didn’t used to be like this.

That’s a lie, actually. It’s always been like this. And it always will be.

 

_“Steve, breathe, come on, take a deep breath.”_

_Panicking, vision going black, bony fingers clutching at his friend’s bony wrist. Air never coming, no matter how hard he tries._

 

They’re 18 and Bucky asks Steve to marry him. He doesn’t get down on one knee, doesn’t even have a damn ring, but he’s sitting on Steve’s bed, holding his hand and trying not to cry. Steve stares up at the ceiling and doesn’t let himself shed a tear either. He will never make it to 21 and he knows it, but he’s not sure Bucky does. He thinks maybe Bucky _does_ know, deep down, but wishes that it wasn’t true, so he pretends it isn’t.

He says no and expects Bucky to leave. He _wants_ Bucky to leave and move on, and save himself the heartache that is going to come, because this is already bad, but it is only going to get worse, he is going to _die_ someday--

 

_“Bucky, we can’t, you know this is a bad idea--”_

_"Yeah, but Steve, we gotta.”_

_Silence for a minute, a slow smile spreading across Steve’s face, and they’re so close he can feel Bucky’s breath on his face. “Yeah,” he says. “I take it back, we gotta.”_

_Bucky kisses him for the very first time._

 

\--and how does that feel so long ago? Just two years. Time goes fast and too slow, and he has a running tally of ceiling tiles in his head. Bucky insists on taking selfies on his phone, and too many of them are taken in a hospital. Steve has a sudden flash of wedding photos set in the hospital cafeteria, and his stomach clenches, and he almost throws up again, for reasons other than disease now.

So he says no, but Bucky doesn’t leave.

 

_“I’ll ask again, okay? When you get better.”_

_They both know he isn’t getting better, but they smile and nod and keep pretending it’ll be okay._

 

They’re 15 when Steve drops out of school. No one misses him but Bucky. He takes classes online and goes to the library when he can, and it’s almost enough.

 

_“It’s not fair, Steve! You can’t just-- just throw everything away already!”_

 

Sometimes, when he’s 23, he thinks about how certain he was that he wouldn’t make it this far. Strong now, taller, finally healthy. Remission, the doctors call it. A miracle, his priest says. Bucky doesn’t call it anything; he just takes Steve home and fucks him in their bed and asks the question again.

Steve says yes.

 

_“I had ‘em on the ropes!”_

_“Sure you did, kid. What’s your name?”_

_“We’re in the same class, Bucky. My name’s Steve.”_

 

Sometimes, he prays. He prays until his eyes sting with tears and his hands ache from being clasped together so long. He prays until a priest asks him if he’s alright, and he pulls his beanie tighter over his bald head, smiles, and says of course. He goes home and prays some more.

He prays for his mother, prays that her boss will treat her right, prays that she’ll get a raise, prays that she’ll get home safe.

He prays for Bucky, prays that he’s safe, prays that he doesn’t get fired from another job for missing too many days, prays that he graduates high school, prays that his own death won’t bother Bucky too much in the end.

He can never bring himself to pray for his own health.

His mother dies, and there’s nothing he can do.

 

_“I’m so sorry I couldn’t come over, it was finals week, I couldn’t miss--”_

_“Bucky, it’s okay, I know--”_

_“Yeah, but I just--”_

 

They get married in a little church, the priest their only witness.

 

_“Shitty apartment, yeah, but the heat works.”_

_“It’s perfect.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Yeah. I love it.”_

 

Steve is a dreamer at age 10. He wants to be big and tall, just like his dad. Maybe he’ll join the army or become a doctor or write a book or star in a movie. The whole world is ahead of him.

 

_“I can’t lose you, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Baby, please, wake up.”_

_Silence._

 

Sometimes, Steve pretends that he is normal. They’re 17, and everything is still so new, every little touch. He’s healthy for a little bit, and spends a few months out of the hospital. Bucky lets Steve press him to his mattress and kiss every inch of his body, and Bucky aches to return the favor, but Steve needs this, deserves this--

He thinks about that day too, sometimes. Not their first time, but it meant so much more than their rushed fumblings. At 24, he wants that back. He’s getting thin again, like he’s 17, and Bucky has a job that keeps him away, and sometimes he comes home in the middle of the night, and half the time Steve falls asleep with the cat as the only other warm body in their bed. Other nights, he’s in the ER, fighting to breathe, no hand to hold.

\--and they say they love each other. They say it over and over and over, with increasing levels of desperation, and they never really stop saying it the rest of their lives.

 

_“I love you, pal.”_

_“I-- I love you too, Buck.”_

 

He’s 13 and still in school, though he misses too much to have decent grades. He thinks that he might’ve been smart in another life, with the time to study and learn and go to classes. Maybe in the alternate universe where that’s possible, he’s healthy and he has a dad and Bucky isn’t his only friend.

He’s okay with this universe, though. It’s the best one he’s got.

 

_“I can’t believe it.”_

_“They’re serious, right? 100%? Remission?”_

 

Steve is three minutes old and the doctors tell his mother that he won’t make it. She tells him this, years later, when he’s got IVs in his arm and a tube in his chest. She says he’s always been a fighter, and he’s always gonna win.

The way Steve sees it, his time was up a long time ago, and he’s just behind schedule.

 

_“Mom? Mom, are you okay?”_

 

More years pass. When he’s 23, they find happiness. Bucky smiles at Steve whenever their eyes meet, and there’s something like wonder in his expression that makes Steve want to cry. He worries, still, that he won’t wake up in the morning, but not as much as he used to. Now he worries that their neighborhood is poor and rundown, Bucky could be mugged walking home from work, and he worries that the work Bucky is doing itself could get him killed.

 

_“The mob, Steve? Really, you think I joined a mob? Or-- or a gang?”_

_“I don’t know, Buck! You leave at all these weird hours and you come home bloody and you just-- you suddenly get all this money out of nowhere!”_

_Bucky doesn’t answer him. In the morning, they pretend the conversation never happened. They do an awful lot of pretending._

 

Sometimes…

Sometimes, Steve knows that Bucky regrets staying. He can’t help feeling that way, Steve knows. These are the bad days, when Steve asks Bucky to leave, and he spends the day staring at the ceiling or staring at the sheets or the liquids in his IV.

Sometimes, he cries.

 

_“Wake up, come on! Wake up, I can’t--”_

 

Steve doesn’t really remember being 16. He had a lot of operations that year, he knows, but that’s all he really remembers. Bucky was there, though. Of course he was.

 

_A whisper in the dead of night, a sleepover at Steve’s house when he’s breathing fine and taking an online art class to fill his time._

_"I think I might be gay.”_

_A beat of silence._

_"Me too.”_

 

Steve wishes he had prayed harder. He wishes and he wishes, and he prays again, louder, screaming his words into the unforgiving night, and still he doesn’t say a word for himself, but his prayers are selfish anyway-- he needs Bucky back.

He’d been right to worry, he knows. Bucky’s blood is on his hands and he’s not breathing, his eyes have gone still and he’s getting so pale, and there are dollar bills sticking out of his pockets, and Steve doesn’t _understand_ because he was supposed to be the one to die first, to die young, but Bucky Barnes is 25 and bleeding out in his arms and he can’t, he can’t--

 

_“Please.”_

  
Steve Rogers doesn’t make it to 25.


End file.
